Close, but the 'splat du jour' goes to Katie!

09 February 2011

Wow! What an action packed day that was! My morning started with John E’s ‘whipper’ while entering the Col Pers and him going for a huge slide on the souffle. It’s not the recommended way in for anyone, let alone a 73-year-old gentleman. Anyway, John dusted himself off and we joked about hoping that he‘d win the ‘splat du jour‘ as we wouldn‘t want anyone topping his act. We then ‘skinned’ to the Glacier Pers, which came up trumps again and we found good snow top-to-bottom. Alison, who has been boarding for the past 16-years and was on just her seventh day on skis since, made fantastic progress and picked up the coveted ‘skier of the morning’ award. Bravo Alison. Andreas and Chris also skied the Glacier Pers today and a great outing was had by all with good snow and wonderful ambience and scenery. (It’s Alison and Neil’s first time to Val d’Isere so they very much appreciated the trip)

This afternoon Doctor Laura and Gideon accompanied Gill, Millie, Katie and I for an afternoon ski at La Daille. We opened up with the half-pipe en-route to a good Familial Sud, then came back up for what Millie calls her ‘funk’ run, which consists of gullies and little jumps. After a couple of runs and just when I was sure things were under control we were in for a surprise. Katie’s normal approach to jumping is slow and controlled, where she barely makes it over the lip of the jumps, but imagine my shock as I watched Katie hit the jump at three times the recommended speed and she flew over the landing zone and disappeared over the edge onto a steep slope where she slid for a good 50 metres. (Good thing Mum had gone home early) I got underneath her as quickly as possible but didn’t need to intervene as she stopped just before arriving on the Diebold. She had a little cry but responded very quickly to a jelly-bean and then on we skied. Bravo Katie!

So the ‘splat du jour’ award today was contested between a 73 and a 5-year-old. Mama mia, what a day!